When you win the European and World Championships in the tournament, and finish in the fifth or sixth place, there are many questions about the quality and perspective of representation that are difficult to answer. If our primary goal was to qualify for the Olympics, we did it, however, we won the current champions, and we did not qualify for the medal match. Where is the reality, how to create a realistic assessment? An interviewed Croatian handball player Irfan Smajlagic is now being asked, now a coach.
– It’s undoubtedly that we have the quality to enter the top four teams, but we have not found the formula to endure the tournament system to the end. Improvements need to be found in many segments: player selection, professional staff, psychological preparation, motivation … to reach the top, in the fight for medals, where we used to be.
We have to find a strategy to have a team that will be able to play several consecutive games in the battle for a medal, rather than having our quality diversified in that period. Because of this, a very important choice of players and what I often mention, bring the national team into the state at a given moment to play their roles at the maximum possible level. Since we did not get to the final games, something went wrong, something does not matter.
About our cautiousness is best illustrated by the fact that in comparison to last year’s European Championship in Zagreb, there are as many as 13 players missing. This is too large regardless of injuries and excuses from representation. The holders, the top eight players, remained the same, but we did not upgrade them to the players who would throw them away in order for these players to submit the tournament system. And in that I see the core of the problem.
Tournament mode requires more players to contribute. I do not see the point of inviting those who will sit on the bench. We need players that can beat Macedonia, Japan and similar teams so that our highest quality players will have freshness in the most important games in which it is determined who will enter the fight for medals and who will win them.
Thirty-one player in two consecutive championships within a year is too large for one national team and is indicative of a certain wandering. Many changes have taken place within the expert staff itself. The Euro had a lot of members, today their number is narrow.
In recent years, I think that the biggest problem of Croatia was the selection of players and their progress through the performances in the national team. In the selection of the first to the seventh player, the team can not be wrong, but in the selection of eight to 20 players will be wrong if a quality selection is not made.
I recall that at this World Cup in comparison to the Euro in Croatia, only eight players (Stevanovic, Duvnjak, Stepancic, Horvat, Karacic, Strlek, Musa and Cindric), that is, bearers who bring quality, while the rest of the team has completely changed. And these players, those who are in the status of 8 to 20, make a major impact on the tournament competitions because they have to ensure that the carriers do not spend before the most important matches, those in which medal winners are determined.
In Germany, we saw a few new players who could enter that group, but we will just find out what will happen to them. Šipić would not even have taken to Germany that Marić and Šušnja had not been hurt. Vrankovic said, but Ligatz was also part of the national team a year ago and did not play at the SP. concluded the experienced Smajlagic.
